Reckoning

The later 1980s were a period of erratic growth—rapid but unstable. Tigers and sea turtles spurred development throughout the decade: East Asia’s “tiger” economies—Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea—paved China’s way in state-led, export-intensive growth. China's “Sea turtles” were the many overseas Chinese who brought capital and knowledge acquired abroad back to their mother country. However, unresolved contradictions lurked in the new political economy of Deng’s China. Frustrations over stalled political reform—enflamed by widespread urban economic grievances over inflation and corruption—erupted in street demonstrations that paralyzed the PRC in the spring of 1989. The Tiananmen crisis would have lasting political repercussions on the cause of democracy—but also unintended economic aftereffects.

Hong Kong Provided China with Capital

Japan Provided Support for Reform

Autocracy and Economic Freedom Brought Growth

Expectations Are the Most Important Growth Factors

Winston Lord

Former United States Ambassador to China

Ambassador Winston Lord is a United States diplomat and administrator. He served as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations between 1977 and 1985. Lord was a key figure in the restoration of relations between the United States and China in 1972. From 1969-73, as a member of the National Security Council’s planning staff, he was an aide to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, accompanying him on his secret trip to Beijing in 1971. The following year he was part of the US delegation during President Nixon’s historic visit to China. Later, Lord became the State Department’s top policy adviser on China (1973-77), the United States Ambassador to China (1985-1989), and assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during President Clinton’s first term.

Lord earned a BA from Yale and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has received several honorary degrees, the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award and the Defense Department's Outsanding Performance Award.

So, the economic component was also there in terms of the need for growth, but I would say corruption and the need for greater political reform plus inflation, which was also a factor, which was economic, of course, and, to a certain degree for the students, academic conditions, both physical and in terms of freedom, so there was a variety of causes. So, it helped to produce Tiananmen Square and I think you are right to point to that as another turning point of reform. Deng had already begun to make reforms domestically in terms of opening to the outside world, including the United States, but I think the Chinese leaders were very scared of their hold on power after Tiananmen and they recognized an increased sense of urgency to step up economic performance to keep people relatively happy, counting on men or women living by rice alone and not yearning for political freedoms as well. So, I do think, as a result of the threat of Tiananmen plus the experience of the USSR, they followed closely Gorbachev’s experience, thought he had made a mistake going for political reform before performing well economically, they were determined to get the economic situation squared away and not have too much political reform because they saw that Gorbachev, in reform, had lost not only communist control, but a whole Soviet empire. So they drew those conclusions from the Soviet experience, plus the close call in Tiananmen to decide that they would do everything they could to raise the standard of living of the Chinese people and hoped that that would lead to political stability and to go slow on political reform.